In short, Law requieres consumers to be able to resell purchased goods. And, even if you do not accept their (Valve) latest update, you still should be able to play your previously bought games (which STeam denies if you do not accept its "patch")...

The gist of the article is that a consumer advocacy group is saying that Steam, or more specifically Valve, has done a disservice to purchasers.

Remember a few months back when the Steam terms of service updated? You either agreed to the new terms, or your account was suspended. None of this relates to automatic updates in games.

This group wants Valve to functionally freeze their terms of service, should consumers not like the new ones. On paper, this is a good idea. You still get access to your old games, under what you legally agreed to. It'd be like not having to sign your soul away when you install iTunes, because you signed up with revision 1.0.

Now that cold b**** reality walks in with a sledgehammer, eying your melon. Valve technically provides a service, not a product. If you read their wording, the Steam service is what you are agreeing to. Services are not required to allow you to keep anything once their contracts are terminated, and if they include the appropriate wording they can be changed with little or no input from the consumer. Not realizing this, they complain that people who have bought quite a few games would lose them if they did not agree to the new terms of service.

Derp?

It's sad to say, but Steam users don't buy games. Steam users buy access to software, that can be pulled by either the developer or Valve at any time. If you've got a problem with that then buy physical media only when you want games.

In short: "The author of this article fell of the stupid tree, hit every branch on the way down, landed on moron rock, and completely missed the point." You can quote me there.

This is a German who doesn't understand the weapons grade crazy that the Valve corporation works under, when in the USA legal system. I've found that it's always hard for foreigners to understand US laws, due in no small part to how stupid and contradictory some of them are.

Steam is great in all respectcs expect this one. This is my only real problem with steam.

I kind of hoped that in the future we would see the ability to sell the digital games we own back for its current retail price or less since their is no portion of it that can be considered used.

This would mean Steam having to adopt some sort of Game Exchage/Sell ebay like system maybe.

But I remain highly doubtfull of all this because something tells me not being able to resale digital games is what makes Steam so successful to developers.

In the end though given the amount of sales they have on games. It would be difficult for anyone at certain points to try and sell a game that is on sale for 5 bucks or simply not that profitable to begin with.

I'd say their would be technical problems as well buts its Valve. They know how to handle those. Ultimately if done right I think Steam would become even more widespread and popular and probably speed up the death of physical copies.

I've found that it's always hard for foreigners to understand US laws, due in no small part to how stupid and contradictory some of them are.

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Ah yes, the old make the legal jargon sound like biblical parables to confuse the masses bit. Quite clever, and extremely annoying. There are so many flaws in the US justice and political systems overall I don't know where to begin.

It's funny how when you're called in for jury duty ( I was two years in a row once), they'll spend much of the first day laying speeches on you of how our legal system works so much better than other countries despite what some think. Yeah right, those working for such entities are obviously paid to say that.

Needless to say the first day of jury duty involves a lot of people fiddling with their cell phones and laptops, or just plain falling asleep. If they actually properly compensated you for your time it would be one thing, but that's one of the worst things about it. How do they expect to get decent jurors by pretending we should feel privileged to be there while they feed us BS and don't even begin to account for the down time?

Please excuse the ignorance, but what? I don't get the reference, and my curiosity is piqued.

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I presume "meat" refers to the notion of the legal proceeding having substance and merit in its objective.

Steam now has a full screen "beta" version if anyone wants to try it, i just tried it out then, its not bad. Its called "big picture".

I just installed the game-fear 2 yesterday from disc, before i play it, i have to download over 4 gigabytes of update data with steam? Thas disgusting really, its a double disc game, should not need 4 gig of "patching"!!!!

It's sad to say, but Steam users don't buy games. Steam users buy access to software, that can be pulled by either the developer or Valve at any time. If you've got a problem with that then buy physical media only when you want games.

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I buy all my Steam games in physical media and I've setup a different account for each of them... sad but necessary if I want to sell them. No disc = no buy from me. I don't care if the future is digital, got enough games to last me a lifetime anyway.

I don't play a lot of multiplayer, nowadays it's just Halo 1 and BF3 for me.

I buy all my Steam games in physical media and I've setup a different account for each of them... sad but necessary if I want to sell them. No disc = no buy from me. I don't care if the future is digital, got enough games to last me a lifetime anyway.

I don't play a lot of multiplayer, nowadays it's just Halo 1 and BF3 for me.

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Reasonable, but crazy.

Assume that you buy, on average, three games per year. At the end of a 7 year period (I use 7 years because it took Valve about two years to get the basics sorted out, but it's just my opinion) you've got 21 games. Assume that, for ease you get the accounts numbered, and use the same password. You're good for resale, but you need to remember what numbered account belongs to what game.

You've managed to make Steam even more complicated, and potentially violated the TOS. Check out http://store.steampowered.com/online_conduct/. They say that you cannot "Create a false identity for the purpose of misleading others." A decent lawyer could easily argue that more than one account is meant to allow transferal of software license, thereby defrauding other users. Hello legal gray area.

My kudos on your thought process. I only question the viability of doing this, and how difficult it might be to maintain with an ever expanding library of games.

Consumers in the US lost the right to title in an earlier court decision in which an Ebay store attempted to sell old versions of I think 3DMax or something like that. It only applies to software, but yeah, wrt software we've lost the right to title.

In the EU they have a shot at an equivalent laws being considered, but not in the US.

BTW, this is the reason I stopped using steam. That change in the EULA.

We will see what happens, Smurf. The EU courts recently ruled against Oracle and allowed end-users to resell their software licenses.
This will have ramifications in the US (for instance, what if I want to sell my license to someone in the EU where it's legal?) and the courts will have to deal with it.

For years the software companies have stated in their EULAs that you are not purchasing the software, just a license to use it. That's fine with me. I don't own the software, I own the license.
Now I want to sell the license (and not the software), so what's the problem?

The speed at which digital distribution moved forward far outpaced the legislators' making applicable laws and the courts ability to uphold said laws. This is not just a US phenomena, but all countries are working to catch up and make equitable laws covering such things. Time will tell how it all pans out.